The Ravagers #0

Howard Mackie is one of those Marvel writers that washed up at the offices of DC like a bunch of flotsam and jetsam that have no ability to write. Or maybe Marvel just left Howard Mackie, Scott Lobdell, Tom DeFalco, and Ann Nocenti in little baskets with the doorman in the DC Offices. And since Mackie is one of this legendary crew, my guess is that the first page will be a single static image with a bunch of narration boxes.

Oh, so close! I'm actually surprised there are dialogue boxes present.

Beast Boy's first day as a captive of The Colony. And it looks like Howard Mackie has continued the trend of NOWHERE being in the Antarctic, its original locale. And Harvest makes an appearance! Probably because he planned to make an appearance. And he's probably planning to have that appearance be a spectacularly crappy one.

You know, I love to hate on horrible writers being paid to do a horrible job, but I'd actually really like for one of them to surprise me and write a terrific comic book already. Especially since Mackie has been given control of Niles Caulder and the Doom Patrol.

Some technobabble experiments are run on Gar Logan, turning him into an Beast Boy and destroying all of his previous memories. Now he won't remember his father Steve Dayton (aka Mento, I think) and his mother Rita Farr (aka Elasti-Girl) and the manipulative jerk Niles Caulder (aka The Chief) and whatever other Doom Patrol members Mackie decides to go with. I'm sure Cliff (aka Robotman) will be one of them. But Harvest doesn't care about Gar's memories. He only wants to find a way to access this other energy field (The Red) which Gar's meta-gene allows him to access. Just like Brother Blood! Is this the way Beast Boy will come into conflict in every comic? Someone wants his access to The Red?

I have a bad feeling that DC is going to veer away from Harvest being Vampire Tim Drake from the future because the entire internet has probably already guessed it. Also, who is his helper? Splutter-Talk?

Since Beast Boy has a mystery to discover, Harvest leaves him to the scientists to continue experimenting on. In the meantime, he turns his attention to Terra.

That must be Splutter-Talk again. It's a good thing I'm not changing ranks based on Zero Issues because this comic would have already dropped two ranks for poorly edited speech bubbles.

Hey, you know what? Let's make that three ranks!

At this point, it's more believable that the character really is Splutter-Talk than that the editors and writers care so little about this comic book.

Four ranks?

"Commas go anywhere you want them, right?" Perhaps this comic book is called Ravagers because they ravage the English language?

At this point, I'm not even following the story. I'm just looking for more errors!

While Omen and Harvest discuss the "Phase-5 Recruits" (whatever those are), Omen makes a statement that needs a comma! So I guess it was just misplaced by three panels. But now that Harvest and Oman and Splutter-Talk have discussed Terra and Beast Boy, what are they going to do for the next 13 pages?

Oh, they're going to dick slap all meaning out of the title of this issue.

If you check back to the first panel I scanned, you'll see the title of this issue was "Day One." So, now, um, the next day of Day One ready to commence!

During Day Two of Day One, more experiments are performed on Beast Boy and the English Language.

And Gar in his undies!

The other members of the "Phase 5 Recruits" are, of course, Lightning, Thunder, and Ridge. It must have all been in Harvest's plan to have the Phase 5 Recruits join together to become The Ravagers. It's such a perfect plan because it makes no sense but it all happened so it must have been part of Harvest's plan. Good work, Harvest!

The Phase Fivers are thrown into the general population. It's so exciting to know that they have The Culling Crossover in their future! Oh, the anticipation! It's like those jerks on that Urn from Greece. Forever expecting The Culling but never having to be completely and utterly disappointed by it. They will live in blissful ignorance of the mess you get when Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco write a crossover together.

This might be my favorite error so far. It's so meta!

Beast Boy has been picked as one of the first combatants in a fight to the death in the not cliche at all arena called The Pit (or was it The Pitt?). But Terra stands up for him and offers to take his place. Harvest is so confused by this that he uses two pieces of punctuation.

Why is Harvest confused? Shouldn't this have been the plan? And another wasted comma, Omen? Holy fuck. Eddie Berganza and Darren Shan must have been jerking each other off when they were supposed to be editing this comic.

I want to say that I'm being biased and picking nits with these errors but they're all so blatantly bad! Maybe I'm the only one that cares about this next one which was in the panel immediately following that last panel.

I know comic books use ellipsis in their own way by connecting the beginning of a sentence to its end when separated by a narration box or another speech bubble. But they usually do it correctly enough with a three dot ellipsis which just indicates a pause. But a four dot ellipsis is only used for an unfinished thought. Which this thought obviously is not. Do you care about this little lesson, Howard? Howard? HOWARD? *fap fap fap fap fap* Ah, he's busy.

Terra is shoved into the pit to take Beast Boy's place since she surprised Harvest. I'm sure later he'll explain exactly how this was all part of his plan, even the feigned surprise. But before he can trade paperback retcon what just happened, Terra has to fight against three other foes. I guess Phase Fivers are expected to show more strength than the lesser Phasers.

She has to battle against The Guy Who Can't Masturbate, Dentally Handicapped Tri-Klops, and The Wookie Without Love.

Beast Boy turns into a tiger and saves Terra. Then Terra and Beast Boy use their powers in ways they hadn't up until then because they were holding back. And Harvest is impressed. Because this was all part of the plan!

That's so completely Tim Drake. Even his mask is a red Bat Symbol.

The Ravagers #0 Rating: Unedited.